Early Action Decisions
Hi again, everybody... As you already know if you've been following along here, our decision letters have been mailed and are making their way to you via the US Postal Service. I have mentioned this before, but I want to reiterate that decisions are only released through the mail. Decisions will NOT be e-mailed to applicants...
We've also had some EA applicants asking if decisions will be available online at any point, and the answer to that question is no, they will not be. All decisions are released via letter in the mail and that is the only way we make them available (please do not call our office-- it is school policy not to give out decisions over the phone). I know this makes a little bit of an additional wait but we want to make sure that students are receiving their decisions at (relatively) the same time via the mail.
As you may recall from earlier blogs, the Early Action applicant pool consisted of just under 3,200 applications (almost exactly the same number we received last year at EA). The EA pool this year was even stronger than last year's pool-- full of incredibly bright, involved, and prepared students who we can see being very successful at the college level. After reviewing all of these students' applications, we reach the following dilemma: How many students can we take Early Action, while still leaving an appropriate number of spaces for the "incredibly bright, involved, and prepared students" who will apply in January at our Regular Decision deadline? Let's talk a little bit about that...
It's a fine line we walk each year with Early Action, because we have (literally) thousands of qualified candidates who apply EA but also have (1) under 1,000 spaces in our freshman class and (2) (literally) thousands more who will be applying Regular Decision (last year, 6,500 students applied Regular!). Therefore, we have to balance these two things:
First, we want to accept as many deserving students as we can EA, because they have earned that invitation to Providence College. Second, we have to protect the deserving students still to come in our Regular Decision pool, making sure that there is still room in the freshman class for these qualified students. So, we come to a number of EA invites that we feel is fair to both of these groups... and this year, that number was just over 1,600 acceptances - what we feel is a good balance that rewards the deserving students who applied EA while not penalizing the students who choose to apply at Regular (there will still be spaces available to those qualified applicants!). And remember, each year we accept more than the 975 or so we have space for in the freshman class knowing that not every student will in turn "accept us" - they'll have a lot of great schools to choose from!
But are there more than the 1,600+ students we have accepted that we can see being great fits to PC (both in and out of the classroom)? Yes, there are - like I said, we had an incredibly strong applicant pool. There are many students who are just a notch below the top of our pool (the students we invited) who will be receiving defer letters in the mail... And it is important to note here that when we defer a student EA, it is because we do see them as being competitive in our Regular Decision review process - in other words, a defer should not be interpreted as a "soft deny." For students who are deferred, their applications will be considered again during the Regular Decision review process in the context of our entire applicant pool.
In addition to inviting and deferring students EA, we also do deny some students at Early - this is a final decision and students who receive an EA deny cannot apply again during Regular Decision. The reason we deny students at Early is because our review processes are very similar at Early and Regular... and therefore, if a student is clearly not competitive in our EA pool, we know that he/she will not be competitive in our Regular Decision pool either. So, instead of deferring that student knowing that we will eventually deny them in March, we feel it is better for the student to learn the decision in December so he/she can move on to other college options.
SO much more to talk about... I'll meet you right here!
Comments
Thank you for all of this information! It is truly beneficial to the admissions process.
I did have one question: when will Providence College send out Liberal Arts Honors/Merit Scholarship letters?
Posted by: Nathan | December 19, 2007 8:50 PM
As a parent, I would like to thank you for the detailed information you have given during the application process. It has been very helpful and also comforting!!!!! Good Luck
Posted by: Paula | December 19, 2007 8:50 PM
To Nathan:
Students who have been invited into the Honors Program (and therefore received a merit scholarship) will be notified by another letter in the mail. These letters are likely to go out before January 1 and will reach mailboxes sometime during the early January.
By the way, all merit scholarships awarded through our office are tied directly to the Liberal Arts Honors Program - meaning any student who is invited into the Honors Program will receive a merit scholarship (and any student who is not invited into the program will not receive a scholarship). There was/is no separate application to be considered for the Honors Program - the top academic performers in our applicant pool are automatically considered for inclusion.
Posted by: Scott Seseske | December 20, 2007 8:47 AM
Your blog is very helpful in understanding the admission process. I have 3 questions regarding a deferred applicant. First, is the application of a deferred applicant read and reviewed during the regular decision process as if it were "new" (i.e. full review as the regular decision applications)? Second, is the application of a deferred applicant identified as such during the regular decision review process, or, is it indistinguishable from a regular decision application? Third, in last year's EA process, what percent of the deferred students were successful in achieving admission to PC. Thank you.
Posted by: rick | December 20, 2007 10:58 AM
To Rick:
Thanks for your posting - great questions that I'm sure a lot of people will be interested in hearing the answers to.
First of all, when a student is deferred and the counseling staff looks at their application again during the Regular Decision review process, we certainly do know that they are a deferred student. (Even if they weren't "coded" as such, we read their applications the first time around during the EA review... as soon as I open a deferred student's application file during the Regular review he/she looks very familiar to me). Since we are aware that the student has been deferred from Early Action, it is not a "new" review at Regular Decision -- all of the information and counseling staff notes from the Early Action review are available to me in the application file when I open it up. It's also important to note that a student who was deferred EA has already had his/her application read by AT LEAST 3 different admission counselors... so multiple readers have reviewed the application and provided input. Therefore, when we look at a defer in the Regular Decision pool, we are focusing a lot on new information that we have received after the defer decision... including (most importantly) first semester senior year grades, any additional contact the student has made with our office (such as an additional personal statement, letter, or essay), and any other updated academic/extracurricular/personal information that has been added to the student's file. We also are taking a look at all of the information we received when the student originally applied EA, and now reviewing this student in the context of our entire applicant pool rather than just the Early Action group.
Each year brings a different Regular Decision applicant pool, so the best way to look at how deferred students have fared in the Regular Decision process is to look at a number of years. I can tell you that over the last four years, about 33% of students who were deferred Early Action were later accepted to Providence College. Does that mean we will take 33% of the deferred students this year? Honestly, the answer is "I don't know." Again, each year's Regular Decision applicant pool is different, and when we defer a student, we do so in order to get a sense of how that student looks in the context of our entire applicant pool. So, if the Regular Decision pool is weaker than expected (i.e. considerably weaker overall than the EA pool was), we might take more than 33% of the defers this year (if many of the students we deferred end up being stronger than the students who apply Regular Decision). On the other hand, if the Regular Decision applicant pool is significantly stronger, we could end up taking less than 33% of the defers (because in the context of the overall applicant pool, these deferred students are not as strong as the students who have applied Regular Decision). It is impossible to predict how many deferred students will be accepted without seeing the Regular Decision applicant pool. Remember though, that we do deny students EA (and it is a final decision), meaning that we see the deferred students as being competitive in the Regular Decision review process. How competitive we won't know until we have reviewed the 6,000+ expected Regular Decision applications.
Posted by: Scott Seseske | December 20, 2007 1:36 PM
Hey scott,
I met you at a college fair this fall and I just wanted to tell you how excited I was to have received my acceptance letter to PC this week. Thanks for all your help in the process. I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~kelly
Posted by: Kelly | December 20, 2007 4:22 PM
Dear Scott,
I wanted to write and thank you for all your help in the admission process. I got my letter in the mail yesterday and I was ACCEPTED EARLY ACTION AT PROVIDENCE !!! Thanks again! -Katie
Posted by: Katie | December 21, 2007 9:00 AM
To Kelly & Katie:
Thanks for posting and congratulations to both of you! Have a great Christmas break!
*Scott
Posted by: Scott Seseske | December 21, 2007 9:18 AM
As a parent of a student who was deferred during EA, your blogs have been extremely informative. My son's top choice is still Providence College and his goal is to become a Friar this fall. Thank you for taking the time to post the blogs.
Posted by: Richard H. | January 9, 2008 10:22 PM